The Storming of Hell
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: Heaven declares war on Hell to rescue the soul of Dean Winchester. No slash, no spoilers. Reviews, comments, feedback always welcomed.
1. Chapter 1

**The Storming of Hell**

* * *

><p><em>"The warrior's gift is to willingly storm Hell that Heaven may remain unstained."<br>- R.V.A. Marcell_

* * *

><p>Raphael looked up from the ancient manuscript as Uriel strode into the quiet chamber. He disliked commotion or dramatics of any kind, a dislike that was sadly lost on his underlings. Uriel, in particular, felt that a dramatic entrance added weight to the importance of his role.<p>

"Well?" The archangel raised a brow.

"Pythius has confirmed it. The First Seal has been broken." Uriel said, his eyes shining with excitement. "All of our planning has come to fruition, at last."

"Hardly," Raphael stared at the seraphim for a moment then turned away. "But it's begun, finally."

"Your orders, my Lord?" Uriel could hardly stand still, he wanted to be away, working on the plan, arranging the pawns.

"Michael will find out from his own sources soon. We should pre-empt that, I think. Tell Zachariah I will see him in the Court. We will have to decide who we can sacrifice."

Uriel bowed his head. "At once."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

* * *

><p>The great chamber was a thousand feet long, and almost as wide. The cool marble floors echoed with the passage of feet, the rustle of wings, as the ranks of the seraphim and cherubim milled around, waiting for the one who had summoned them.<p>

Standing beside the pillars of Heaven; soaring columns of marble and anthracite, porphyry and obsidian, Castiel watched the swelling mass of angels with a feeling of dread in his heart. He had not seen the chamber so filled for more than two thousand years. The last time it had been to declare that Heaven was in a state of War.

Near the tall golden doors, there was a stirring in the crowd. Castiel turned his head, watching as the throng began to part, swirling in eddies as they moved aside.

Michael swept into the room, his fury evident in the speed of his progression, the tension visible in his construct. He reached the dais, striding up the two broad, shallow steps that raised the low stage above the level of the main floor, and turned.

"Raphael! Gabriel!" His voice thundered through the chamber, echoing from the hard surfaces of stone. He saw his brothers walking slowly through the mass of the crowd.

"Explain to me how this has happened!"

The archangel was beautiful, a beauty that had no equivalent on Earth, or any other plane. But now the perfect features marred by his emotion, the black brows drawn together, his wide, full mouth thin and taut, the unearthly blue eyes narrowed and spitting fire.

"Calm yourself, brother," Raphael drawled. "Your wrath is out of place here."

Michael stared at him. "Is it, Raphael? There is one bloodline, one alone, who can break the First Seal of Lucifer's Cage. And now, of that bloodline, only one was left who could have been conceivably used to do so." He paused, turning to glare out over the Host who stood assembled. "And no one was watching him? Explain."

"It was an error in judgement," Raphael conceded, spreading his hands out placatingly. "We could not foresee that he would take the action he did over his brother's death."

Michael shook his head. "No, brother, that's not good enough. Dean Winchester had a year before he was taken to Hell, and he's been held there for four months."

Gabriel stood silently, watching both archangels. When he had heard the news, it had seemed … convenient … in his mind. He could see Michael's fear, beneath the fury. He looked at Raphael thoughtfully.

"Zachariah!" Raphael called the seraphim. "Who had the duty of watching the Winchesters?"

"My Lord, we were not told of their importance until the elder brother had already been taken by hellhounds," Zachariah fell to his knees before Raphael. "My most trusted and diligent team were watching them, generally, but there was the matter of Azazel and the opening of the Hell Gate to be monitored at the same time –"

"Excuses!" Michael gestured imperiously, his anger not quenched. "Bring them here."

Four angels walked slowly toward the dais. Raphael moved aside, withdrawing. Gabriel looked sadly at his brothers, knowing what was to come. He turned away.

"You have failed in your duty and in your obedience to Heaven, my brothers." Michael looked down at them, his face as cold as the marble that lined the chamber. The four knelt before him.

The blast of light from Michael's hands was blinding. The kneeling angels were burned in the heart of the white incandescence, the anthelion reflecting a thousandfold from the pillars and floor.

Michael dropped his hands and looked at Raphael. "Their deaths are on your head, brother."

He turned back to the massed seraphim, his voice ringing out through the great chamber. "Prepare the Host. Gabriel, ten battalions, experienced fighters only. Oriphiel, the same. Get them ready, we leave in five hours to storm the gates of Hell."

* * *

><p>Amidst the chaos and noise of the rushing angels, Castiel stood beside the pillar, watching the activity with misgiving. Raphael's lack of humility. Michael's fury. This sudden decision to an action that had no precedent in the histories of Heaven, the pieces hung tantalisingly in his mind, separate yet he could feel their connections. The air blew past in a wild eddy, and Michael was beside him.<p>

"Castiel, your loyalty and devotion to our Father, to Heaven, have been unquestioning. I would have you to lead the company that will enter the Inner Circles of Hell, to rescue the soul." Michael looked down at the lesser angel, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"My Lord, I am not sure –"

"Then be sure, Castiel," Michael looked at him, his voice softening as his eyes darkened. "I need someone loyal now, I need someone I can trust."

Castiel raised his eyes slowly, his attention sharpening. "You think it's a plot?"

The archangel looked around the great chamber, scanning the faces of the angels still milling around. He shook his head slowly. "I find it hard to believe my brothers could have failed to protect the man. I also find it hard to believe that any could plot against Heaven. I thought … I'd hoped that insurrection had gone from here with the Lightbringer's downfall." He sighed then shook off his doubt, looking into the seraphim's eyes intently.

"And that is why I need you, to raise Dean Winchester. I know you will not fail."

Castiel bowed his head. "I will not, My Lord."

"Thank you. Gather your warriors, pick only the best, Castiel – the extraction of this soul will be difficult." He turned away and strode through the crowd, across the chamber.

Castiel watched the mass part before him, and close up again behind him. He was shaking, with the responsibility he now held, with nervousness, with doubt. He had never crossed to the plane that was Perdition, though it lay adjacent to the plane of Heaven, adjacent to the earthly plane. The planes lay close, so close that crossing was as simple as leaning across a fence, and plucking a rose from the other side, though the abyss between them was deep. He had heard from others that Lucifer's kingdom was a confusion, an unstructured, shifting creation that drank light and spat out shadow and flame. And they would face the Fallen, leading the hellspawn against them.

He straightened his shoulders, lifting his head. He had a job to do, and he would do it, or die trying. He saw Gabriel, in the corner of the chamber, speaking to Raphael and Uriel. He began to walk towards them.

* * *

><p>Balthazar looked up as he buckled on his armour, adjusting his sword belt so that the sheath hung flat, the elaborate basket hilt ready to his hand.<p>

"Quite a promotion, Cas." He commented, his eyes narrowing as he took in the tension in his brother.

Castiel nodded uncomfortably. "It was … unexpected. I need what we have on the Inner Circles, Balthazar. Everything we have. Michael will hold the entrances and the bulk of the hellspawn, but we will be going deeper."

Balthazar tilted his head. "That sounds ominous. We're the rescue party, I take it?"

Castiel turned his head to look at him, his face expressionless. "I don't have time for a discussion, my brother. I need those plans now."

"Sorry. Of course." The angel disappeared.

Leaning back against the wall, his armour heavy and pinching him in places, Castiel let out a long breath. He lacked the ability to lead, he thought unhappily. He couldn't find the balance between discipline and camaraderie. He could only hope that it wouldn't cost them when they were in battle.

He had watched over the earthly plane and his Father's most treasured creations for more than two thousand years. He'd fought demon and angel, here in the halls of Heaven and on the earthly plane. It wasn't his skill or experience he was worried about, he thought. The responsibility for his warriors would lie on his shoulders and he knew, without a flicker of shame or modesty, that there were better leaders for this mission. And worse ones.

Michael had spoken of trust. He wondered if the archangel truly believed that there were those here who would work against them.

* * *

><p>The Host stood assembled in the outer Court, at the appointed time. Michael watched them, ten thousand angels filling the vast space from end to end, grouped in their companies, their leaders waiting silently with them.<p>

He prayed to his Father that they were ready. He was aware that his decision had no precedent. It would be seen as an outright act of War. And so it was. He had prayed but still there was no answer.

Castiel stood with his company. He had handpicked the fighters that formed it, with the exception of Uriel. The older seraphim had been appointed to the company by Raphael, over Gabriel's protests. He missed the sure command of Arariel, the certainty of her faith, the brilliance of her strategic thinking. He shook his head impatiently. She was gone, he was leader now.

Michael nodded to Gabriel, and the archangel raised a golden horn to his lips. The notes, like crystal birds, floated out over the assembly, stirring the seraphim, calling them to battle. The melody wrapped around them, lifting them, and as it grew more complex, Castiel felt the change in the fabric of the universe around them, the light brightening, the Court receding, as they crossed over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

><p>They may as well have been in another universe, and perhaps they were. The sky was dim, low with a roiling cloud cover that seemed to suck the air from them.<p>

The wind blew over the vast broken plain, soughing through the rock, carrying a fetid stench to their noses, and the wailing of the damned to their ears. Castiel looked up at the towering black walls before them. They gleamed disturbingly in the pallid light, and seemed to writhe and twist, as if alive.

Michael drew his sword, holding it aloft as from hilt to blade tip, white flame erupted along its long length.

"To me, angels of Heaven." His voice, deep and rich and powerful, reached across the Host to every angel. Gabriel lifted his horn again, this time the music held a warning and a threat; the notes throbbed through the thick air and swirled around them. "This day we will bring Light to the darkness."

"In the name of our Father!" Michael called, and the Host surged forward.

* * *

><p>Castiel led his company forward as the obsidian gates were shattered, following the serried ranks of seraphim ahead. The air was rent with the shrieking of the soldier demons, and the crack and snap of their wings as they poured over the Host through the gaping crevices in the walls of Hell. They were gargoyles come to life, misshapen skulls, deformed bones, huge eyes gleaming red and black in the gloom, wide mouths filled with needle-sharp teeth.<p>

The countenance of the hellspawn reflected the souls from which they were formed, evil refined over hundreds of years to a single emotion, a single purpose, hatred and the desire to kill, he knew, swinging his sword, its edge brilliant against their darkness. He looked up and saw a dark figure high on the wall, the black raiment concealing all but the skeletal hand that directed the demon army.

"Musriel!" Castiel turned back to the archer; he pointed to the figure and the angel nodded, drawing an arrow from the silver quiver that hung against his side and nocking it onto the string. His aim was true, but the arrow burst into flame feet from its target, and the figure turned its head slowly to look for the bowman. Castiel shuddered, knowing that he was looking at an archdemon, one of the Fallen who had been cast into Perdition when Lucifer was defeated.

He raised his sword, and stood between the demon prince and his archer, staring into the empty blackness of the creature's hooded cloak. He could feel the demon's regard, a chill settling into his limbs, leeching into his body, robbing him of his will, his strength.

Michael's voice cut through the draining sensation as the archangel climbed the wall toward the Fallen, his sword coruscating with fire, shedding light around him, over the angels below, driving the demons back as it grew brighter.

The archdemon broke the stare and looked down, the bony hand drawing a blade from beneath the shredded and torn folds of its cloak. The metal was dark, dripping with black ichor, as he raised it.

Castiel drew a deep breath, knowing that Michael's intervention had not been for him. He had a job to do. He had to get on with it.

* * *

><p>They fought their way through the seething horde, passing through the deep ravines and gorges of the outer Circle, littered with razor-sharp volcanic rock, pools of sulphuric acid, the bones of those who had finally journeyed beyond Hell's torture.<p>

Castiel knew that every soul saw its own Hell, to each it was a vision of their worst fears, their most profound self-loathing. The angels saw Hell as it was, however, for it had been created by an angel. The damned had laboured for millennia to build the perverse and towering replica of the structures of Heaven, their blood and sweat, remembered by the soul, and their tortured pain raising the columns of obsidian and onyx, paving the outer Court with great slabs of polished basalt.

Gabriel's horn blew again and the horde retreated as a heavenly light brightened around them. Oriphiel's battalion had succeeded in flanking the main body of the army, and the mass of the demons were milling, caught in the pincer of the two angelic forces. The Inner Gates, massive barriers of black quartzite, exploded outward under the onslaught and the Host pushed through, driving the denizens of Hell before them. Company after company spread through the first level of the Inner Circles, their constructs glowing with light, their swords swinging, cutting, thrusting, driving forward as they pressed back the darkness.

The second set of Gates, leading to the next level, stood before them. And Castiel called to his company as he noted that the demons were rallying, reforming the lines, their chaotic retreat dissipating as they gathered under the command of another of the Fallen. Baal was the ruler of the Second Level, and the archdemon was taller, broader than the first level's leader, blackness filling the swirling cloak.

Michael looked to Gabriel. He nodded, drawing his troops together, lifting the horn to his lips. On the other side of the monstrous cavern, Oriphiel marshalled his own battalions, the seraphim forming tight ranks as they advanced on the entrance. Michael strode down between them, his sword flaming, and Baal stepped forward, a shadow within a shadow, his long-handled battle mace swinging up.

The Fallen had suffered for their loyalty to the Morningstar, Castiel realised, staring at the creature. They'd had to endure a thousand years of Lucifer's impotent rage before he'd turned to the human souls for his entertainment. Their angelic forms were gone, stripped down to the bone by the centuries of torture and torment. They were now as wraiths, fleshless, yet not spirit for angels had no spirit, no soul or spark of Divine love. Their existence was pain, the creation and the devouring of it. And in that, they had no equals. Nine there had been, who had followed Lucifer into the Pit. Eight remained.

The angels could feel the cold hunger radiating from the archdemon; it sucked at them, drawing on their life-filled constructs, devouring their hope, spewing into their minds images of evil and depravity, shutting off their connection to Heaven.

Michael lifted his sword and waited, knowing the effect of the demon on the army, refusing to acknowledge it in himself. He prayed and felt the strength of Heaven flowing into him, the flames burning brighter along the sword, his wings stretching out to either side, as the Prince of Hell swung the heavy mace.

After, Castiel could only remember parts of the surreal battle that he'd watched. Light and darkness intertwined on the shining blackness of the cavern's floor. Michael's sword, whistling through the thick air, striking the archdemon with a sound like thunder, the demon's speed and strength as the mace boomed into the floor, the reverberations trembling the cavern's walls, sending spears of light from the shaking crystalline columns. Only an angel's sword could kill an angel.

The explosion, dark and bright, when the flaming sword had pierced the demon's armour, driving through what remained of its chest, had knocked all in the cavern to their backs, angel and demon alike. Something evil had gone out of the world and the outward blast lifted the miasma of shadow from the cavern. The second Gates were gone. The demon horde fled before them, shrieking and wailing, claws and teeth and fury disappearing into the black well of the Second level.

* * *

><p>The level was a maze. Company by company the angels split off, fighting sorties against the demons in the darkness, the noise and chaos echoing and resounding through the tunnels and passages, until it was impossible to discern where the battles were being fought or which side was winning or losing.<p>

"We can hold them here, on this level," Michael said to Castiel quietly as they stopped in the lowest caverns, the companies resting briefly. "From here, you are on your own. There are four more levels to the Lake of Fire. Dean Winchester is on the Seventh Level."

Castiel nodded and lifted his arm. His warriors turned and followed him, forming lines as they marched into the passage that led downward. At first, it seemed as if they were marching in circles, the floor rising and falling as the tunnel wound endlessly into the depths. But gradually the noise of battle receded and the souls of Hell scurried away ahead of them, fearful of the brilliance of the light they emitted and cast before them.

"You know, this is a suicide run, don't you, Cas?" Balthazar fell into step beside Castiel.

Castiel turned to look at his friend curiously. "What's your point?"

"I heard from a little bird, that the First Seal has already been broken. Weeks ago." Balthazar said, his gaze watching the way ahead.

Castiel felt his hope waver, his doubts returning more strongly. "That can't be true."

"It is, though." Balthazar turned to look at him, the glint of mischief that was almost permanently a part of his expression, gone. "My sources are certain, and they're impeccable."

Castiel bowed his head. He couldn't think of anything else to say. The dread he'd felt in Heaven rose again. The First Seal was the hardest, should have been impossible. The rest – there were too many possible seals, too many demons who could break them. Was he going to be witness to the end of days?

"I'm just wondering why we're still heading down there," Balthazar gestured ahead of them. "When the deed has been done."

Castiel shook his head. "Call a halt."

* * *

><p>The angels waited. Castiel walked away from them, as far as he could within the confines of the tunnel.<p>

_Michael_. He called to the archangel. _The First Seal has already been broken_.

_I know. _The response sounded in his mind_. But the human must be saved still. The prophecy …_

Castiel waited, feeling Michael's concentration switch to defence and attack, on the other side of the level.

… _the Prophecy of the First Seal. The righteous man who broke the seal is the only one who can end it. He must be saved, Castiel. Do not doubt._

"Company, in line, march on." Castiel's deep voice echoed along the tunnel. "Now."

Balthazar looked at him quizzically. Castiel shook his head. He would answer his friend's questions later. Right now, they had to rescue the soul, and there were another five levels to get through first.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

><p>Speed is our only hope here, Castiel thought as the company descended to the Third level. A hundred and fifty angels were not quiet enough for surprise, and although he thought that the bulk of the horde were engaged with the Host in the levels above, he could not discount the possibility of ambush, particularly once they reached the lower levels.<p>

On the Third level, the souls were partially embedded into the rocks that formed the series of large caverns they passed through, trapped by a hand or foot. He slowed to watch one, noting the emaciated frame, the tatters of rags that hung from the man's body. It was a strange thing, the human soul, imbued with the mind. Energy only, yet it remained trapped in its memories of its earthly body, of flesh and bone, and here, as above in the divine realm, those memories were powerful enough to override the reality. Demonkind could not have been created as they were without the soul's adherence to a non-existent form. Torture of mind only was far more difficult.

Each held a tool, a pick axe or a shovel or an adze, and they worked to chip away at the hard igneous rock. Above them, a hundred feet from the ground, cable stretched in a titanic net that filled each cavern. Hooks and chains hung from the net at various points. No demons lurked in the perpetual shadows that filled the caverns, and the souls themselves paid no attention to their passing, could not, the angel thought, even see them. Their labour was unrelenting and unending. Castiel glanced around and could not imagine the purpose of the task.

The last winding passage led them into a vast open space. Even the combined light of the company could not penetrate the darkness that filled the soaring heights of the unseen ceiling, nor the depths below them. A stairway had been chiselled from the closer rock face of a deep split in the earth, uneven steps leading down into the abyss.

_Adoian Baltim_. The Face of Fury, it was called in Enochian; the demons called it את התהום המוות הבלתי נלאה, the Chasm of Endless Death. It was the dividing line between the upper and lower levels of Hell.

Castiel stared down into the abyss, his gaze on the steps winding down into the blackness. He glanced to the other side and saw the vague outline of another stair rising again to finish at the gates to the next level. The bridge across, he knew, lay in the depths and was guarded by the demons of shadow. Before humanity, the inhabitants of Hell had been elementals. Fire and darkness. Air and water and stone. The daeva had never been human and their savagery was remorseless.

"Can we fly?" Balthazar asked him. They could both hear the whispers of wings, far below.

Castiel shook his head. Spells had been worked over Adoian Baltim, against those of every plane and dimension, warding the passage against all beings of power. Flight across the abyss was impossible. The only way across was the staircase and the bridge.

Balthazar looked down into the darkness, his face grim. _All this for a man who had already failed._

"Swords drawn, archers ready." He called down the line and the hiss of metal echoed from the chasm's walls. He nodded to Castiel, and the company began the long march down.

* * *

><p>Castiel walked behind the point, sword held ready in his hand. The light of the company illuminated the rock wall they traversed, a little too clearly at times, as he noticed the scratches along the surface of the rock, the stains that had soaked deep into the stone. Beyond their light, the black void to their right was impenetrable, the sense of space and movements within it alien and disturbing. The chasm was far from silent. Soft chitterings, the scrape of talons on the rocks below, and the distant, discordant screams echoing up to them made the angels walk quietly, their breath held, tension growing as the stairs continued down and down, making them walk closer together, instead of in formation.<p>

And so it was when the attack came, less than half could manoeuvre themselves freely. The demons were as black as the chasm they lived in, the white brilliance of the angelic light reflecting from black hide as slick and polished as jet, and they came without warning from the darkness that filled the abyss, the eerie white reflections in their black eyes the only sign of attack.

"Spread out!" Balthazar screamed, ducking as great, hooked talons flashed past him, the tips shredding his flesh at the join between breastplate and pauldron as the demon pivoted around in the air. "Archers, fire!"

Two arrows, drawn and fired in quick succession, found their marks, the demons lit up from the inside at the point where the angelic arrowheads had penetrated, white light pouring from their eye sockets and wide-stretched mouths. They fell into the deeps as they died. Steadied and emboldened by Musriel's success, the other archers drew their bows, firing volleys as the demons swooped and dove around them.

Castiel swung his sword, feeling it bite into the black leathery hide, slice through muscle and tendon and cleave the bone. The demon's shriek of agony drilled through his mind and he flinched back as he realised how old these demons truly were. Not Lucifer's at all, but creatures of an older time, when the earth had shaken and moved, fire rained down from the skies and cold was an unknown concept. He shook off the distraction of those thoughts, parrying the talons that reached for him, knocking the demon against the rock wall.

"Cross the bridge!" Uriel's deep voice cut through the clash of metal and the screams of the dying. "Get across the bridge."

The narrow bridge was just below them; more demons were flying from the walls, and rising on the hot updraughts below it. Castiel nodded and thrust his sword through a demon that had flown straight out of the blackness at him. "Balthazar, the bridge!"

"Seventh Company! To the bridge! Get to the bridge!" Balthazar's voice boomed between the narrowing rock walls, and the angels turned as one, parrying the attacks and moving at the same time. Castiel was carried along with them, his eyes shifting around constantly, looking for that tell-tale gleam, listening for the flat crack of the leathern wings, feeling for the shifting air currents and the eddies within.

Back to back, they crossed the bridge, the width so narrow only single file was possible. Below a thin red line showed now and then through a miasma of sulphurous fumes. Their light was dying, Cas noted despairingly, his sword sweeping through the thick air and jarring abruptly as it struck the demon. Were they too far from Heaven, down here, he wondered? Or was the power of Hell stronger, the deeper they penetrated?

When Lucifer had been cast down, he had claimed this kingdom as his own. _Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven_, one human poet had captured the fallen angel's bitter ambitions correctly. The Lightbringer's envisioning of the Accursed plane had lacked imagination but not arrogance. There were many parts of Hell that mirrored the halls of Heaven. And the infinite energy of the souls, driven and tormented and corrupted, powered Hell just as the souls powered its counterpart.

Billions of souls, their undying life-force harvested and held. A power sink of unimaginable depth, giving strength to the demons old enough to harness it, in exactly the same way the angels' power came from the massed souls of the Divine plane. Were they nearing Lucifer's conduit for that power, the angel asked himself?

He ducked and swung, the shriek of the demon impaled on his sword rising and drilling through his mind, and his foot slid out on the blood-slicked stone, nothing but empty air beneath it, his balance wavering over the edge.

A hand gripped him tightly, yanking him back to the centre of the bridge and Cas gulped as he looked up into Uriel's dark eyes, nodding once in thanks. The archangel turned away, gesturing behind them. The end of the bridge was but a few yards distant, and steps led upward.

Where the darkness gave way to the dim red glow of Hell's pulsing non-light, the shadow demons ceased their attack, dropping away and returning to the depths of the abyss. Climbing the stairs wearily beside Castiel, Balthazar looked down, watching the almost invisible shapes wheel and plunge out of sight.

"What is that place?" he asked.

"It is _Grosb Cnila_." Castiel gave the depths their Enochian name. "Bitter Blood. Where betrayers and traitors are torn apart for eternity."

Balthazar looked at him and back down into the blackness. "Sounds lovely."

Castiel sighed, wiping his sword blade clean of the foul liquid that covered it. "Betrayal is worse than murder, Balthazar, you know that."

* * *

><p>When they reached the top of the stairs on the other side, he was shocked to find that they'd lost almost eighty angels in the fight. He counted again, his lips tight. Uriel watched him expressionlessly, then put his hand on Castiel's arm.<p>

"There was no other way, Castiel." He looked at the entrance to the passage leading down to the next level. "We still have two more levels before we even reach the Lake of Fire. We need to get moving."

Castiel nodded. He walked straight for the entrance, abandoning the protocol of the Host. Balthazar and Uriel looked at each other, then followed, the seraphim forming ranks and closing behind them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

><p>The Fifth level was utterly empty. They ran at a steady pace through the deserted tunnels and caverns, past chambers and great halls. Here the walls had been smoothed and polished, the floors cut into elaborate designs, patterns of trees and leaves and flowers carved into the columns of shining black stone. But no demons attacked, no souls were present; the endless winds of the halls of Hell, driven by the rising thermals from the lowest levels, swept past them, the only sound that they themselves were not making in the entire place.<p>

* * *

><p>The Sixth level gates were closed but unguarded. It made Castiel uneasy. He touched the gates, feeling for anything that didn't match the structure of the materials. He could feel nothing out of place.<p>

"Might be an ambush," he said softly to Balthazar. "Make sure everyone's ready."

He set his hands over the locking mechanism and closed his eyes. A second later, the deeply set locking rings moved apart and the monstrous tenons pulled free. The gates swung open. Castiel's eyes widened.

The cavern was immense, enormous. He couldn't even see entire extent of it. Like a great domed bubble in the fabric of the earth, the Sixth Level was almost spherical, the centre filled with bubbling, hissing and spitting lava that was, Castiel realised belatedly, the Lake of Fire.

From the gates, the ground sloped gently down to the lava-kissed shore. The heat was overwhelming, so dry and acrid that Castiel looked down at his hands, seeing the skin stretch and thin, taut over the bones. The Lake's fumes were a poisonous mixture of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen sulphide, methane and carbon monoxide, a toxic miasma that burned at the skin and eyes, even of angels.

"Tell me you're sure that this has a far shore." Balthazar came up beside Castiel and looked across the molten lake, at the small eruptions that burst into flame here and there across the vast surface.

"This is not a construct of Lucifer. It's a part of the natural world on this plane. At some point, I would imagine it will erupt, when the pressure increases and the magna rises too high, but for the moment it is stable."

"How reassuring." Balthazar glanced sideways at Castiel. "So we fly over it?"

"That's the only way." Castiel nodded.

Balthazar sighed and turned towards the company. "Swords to hand, everything else stowed. We're flying across."

The bubble, formed by the rising magma pushing against the impervious crust above, was forty miles wide by forty miles long, a circle that lay within the more oval confines of the rock. The legends of his home said that there were many places where the planes touched and joined, features existing in both on either side of the division. This was one. One day it would erupt, the pressures of the earthly plane overwhelmingly the accursed plane's control.

One hundred and twenty angels soared with outstretched wings on the rising heat above the Lake of Fire, their shining white skin gilded and reddened by the glow of the molten rock beneath them. Even several hundred feet above the lake's surface the temperatures were extreme and Castiel stared at the fiery horizon as he flew, counting down the minutes until they would reach the relatively cooler far shore.

* * *

><p>They reached the far side and landed on a milky grey shore, pumice crunching under their feet. The slope gently ascended to a cliff wall, pierced by the towering porphyry gates to the Seventh level. The smooth red stone was etched with sigils and signs, the red-gold light of the lake lighting the bas relief and throwing shadows around every design.<p>

Uriel stood beside Castiel, and read the inscription that ran above them. "_You are brought down to the __Realm of the Damned__, to the Depths of the Pit, where Angels fear to tread. Here, is pain for Eternity._"

Behind them, Balthazar snorted. "Plainly, angels do not fear to tread here – melodramatic narcissists, demons."

Castiel hid a smile. Balthazar could be counted on to lighten the situation, no matter how dire it seemed.

He put his hands against the doors. The stone was cool, despite the proximity to the lake, and he could feel the rings and tenons deep within its mass. He looked over his shoulder.

"This is held too firmly for me to shift alone. Uriel, Balthazar, Mustriel, stand beside me, we must do this together."

They laid their hands on the stone, each of them aware that they were far from the power of Heaven, that here, in this domain, it was their fallen brother's power that flowed through rock and metal.

When the gate's locks refused to yield, Castiel shook his head, turning to look at the company. "To me, brothers," he ordered over his shoulder. "Unite and harmonise, we must be in concert to break through."

As he felt their massed strength blend together, a sweet chord of power flowing into and through him, Castiel wondered if it was this that Lucifer had never been able to see. Unity – and the sublimation of each angel to the greater good in perfect obedience to the cause – had been what the Morning Star had rebelled against. Demons were not capable of it. Perhaps even humanity was not capable of it, the individual lost in the whole, giving themselves up to a greater purpose than a single life. His song entwined with the others', soaring to a euphonious crescendo as each frequency of celestial intent found its place within the heavenly symphony.

Under their hands and minds, the gates shuddered once. Deep within the rock, the rings and mortises and tenons cracked and broke apart, and the stone slabs moved, opening inwards inch by inch.

Uriel had felt his connections to his master in Heaven thinning with every step they'd taken, stretched to a thread at the crossing of Adoian Baltim; to a hair's width once they'd passed over the Lake. Now, as he walked between the gates of the Seventh level, it was gone completely. He stopped involuntarily, earning a complaint from the seraphim behind him. Hesitating, as that final strand of awareness snapped and vanished, he realised he couldn't just remain there. His orders were clear. The human soul had to be brought free of Hell.

* * *

><p>The Seventh level was completely different from any other level they'd passed through. There was no recognisable ground to speak of. Serrated and saw-toothed rocks, razor sharp and frozen into shape as the exploding lava had cooled rapidly was embedded with upthrust daggers of obsidian and diamond-bright shards, a floor of knives to torture those who walked here. The larger, tilted slabs of upthrust rock and hardened flowing waves of brittle stone reached above the jagged plain, a twisting labyrinth of gargantuan size. Far in the distance, a mountain range lay black and craggy against a dim blue light that even at this remove, felt chill.<p>

Balthazar looked down at the rocky ground. "This will be fun." He raised his gaze and stared at the far range of mountains. "Is it just me, or does that look like ice reflection to you?"

Castiel nodded. "Beyond those mountains are the Eight and Ninth levels. The Eighth Level is a frozen wasteland. The Ninth holds the Cage. Lucifer's prison is enclosed in a mountain of ice."

"How suitable." Balthazar looked around. "How are we supposed to find this soul here?"

"Through the labyrinth," Castiel said, looking around the edges of the broken rock walls. "He will be at the centre."

They both flinched back as a blast of furnace-hot wind blew out of one of the openings in the wall, carrying fine dust and spinning into a savagely driven vortex in seconds. Balthazar watched as the whirlwind rose abruptly, feeling the scourge of the glass dust against his construct's skin, his eyes widening as the wind seemed to flick out and break over the jagged rocks.

"We can't fly across this," he muttered to Castiel. "We'll be ripped to shreds."

"No. We'll walk." Castiel began to pick his way across the ground, his face tightening as the sharp edges sliced at his feet. Watching him, Balthazar saw the trail of blood the angel left.

"Close ranks," he called out to the company, ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain as he strode after his commander and the razor-edges cut into him. With each step, his construct was healing itself, the deep wounds closing up until he put his feet down again. Each impact ripped through him anew, as perhaps it did to the souls that were cast here.

* * *

><p>The seraphims feet were lacerated and bleeding freely when they came to the centre of the labyrinth. Each twist and turn in the pattern had led them across worse and worse ground, and the open wounds had taken longer and longer to heal.<p>

At the centre, the rock had gone completely; replaced by a bristling floor of shards of black crystal, thrusting this way and that, long and short, wide and narrow, the strange grey light of the louring sky catching every edge. The growing chill should have warned them, Castiel thought as they came around the last bend and stepped into the circular clearing.

Moloch, Fallen, archdemon, stood waiting for them, his murky aura of dark cold almost filling the unnatural amphitheatre, the shreds of the black cloth wound around him fluttering in an acid-scented, directionless wind. A thousand demons perched on the outthrust pillars of black glass and pocked, volcanic rock that rose up to every side.

Castiel scanned the interior of the arena quickly. To one side, a huge stone table stood. Beside it a metal rack, its chains and pulleys coated with a thick black substance. And beside that, the human soul they had come to rescue, held firmly in a demon's grip, a demon with an elongated skull, mottled grey and black skin, silver eyes. Castiel spared the human a careful look as he walked into the bowl of stone. Like most humans, the soul had taken the same form as in life, a tall young man, broad-shouldered and fair-skinned, with green eyes and closely-cropped dark hair. In those eyes were a depth of darkness, and Castiel could see that they were indeed too late to prevent the breaking of the Seal.

"The arrogance of your kind continues to amaze me," the guttural whisper came from within the black hood of the archdemon, its dissonance instantly repugnant to the angels.

Castiel turned to stare at the archdemon, his expression cool and remote. "Arrogance is not in short supply in your domain, Moloch."

He was outclassed and he knew it. In single combat against this foe, he wouldn't last more than a few seconds. But he wasn't planning on _single_ combat against the archdemon. He felt Uriel step out to his left, Balthazar to his right, the faint ring and hiss of their swords echoing from the walls.

"Give us the soul and we will depart, without further bloodshed to either of our kind," Castiel offered.

The grating, sepulchral laugh of the Fallen One started softly but grew in volume and resonance, rumbling through the arena of glass and echoing oddly from the sharp edges all around them.

As it died away, the archdemon attacked and the waiting demons rose into the air, a hurricane of flapping wings, wheeling and diving as they fell on the company of angels.

The Fallen's sword, long and black, snaked from the folds of his cloak, stabbing at the angel. Castiel's sword, brightly lit against the blackness of the rock, swung upward, blocking the thrust and sweeping it to one side as he stepped closer to the archdemon. A blade of glass pierced his foot, slicing through the flesh. He tried to ignore it, to keep his concentration focussed tightly on the enemy he faced but he could feel the blood flowing, the wound not healing up at all. To either side of him, Balthazar and Uriel swung at the archdemon together, their blades clashing as the demon vanished.

"_Micaloz odqvasb orri_" Uriel's deep voice cried out in Enochian, and he swung his sword around, pivoting as the blade lit up the amphitheatre in a blast of argentine light. The sharp points of the obsidian shattered, leaving the ground uneven but no longer impossible to cross or step on. Moloch materialised in front of them, snarling as he drove forward, his sword moaning through the thick air.

Uriel intercepted, the heavily-built angel grunting as he took the impact through his blazing blade, his eyes lighting silver for a second, and Balthazar and Castiel struck from the other side, sword blades disappearing for a moment into the tattered cloth of the archdemon and an unbearably shrill discord filling the ether as their points reached their target.

Balthazar caught Castiel's eye and nodded, turning his attention immediately back to the archdemon as he parried another high cut, offering an opening to draw the demon's sword and leave him vulnerable to Uriel.

Castiel spun around, and ran for the soul, his sword blazing in his hand. The silver-eyed demon dragged the soul behind the stone table, and Castiel saw the man flinch from the stone, from the stains that covered it. There is hope then, he thought, a little incredulously.

Behind him, he could hear the clash of swords, the whistle of arrows and the shrieks of the dying, of rage and wrath and fury from his brothers, and from those they fought.

In front of him, the silver-eyed demon laughed softly. "It is Castiel, isn't it? Long time no see."

Castiel nodded. "Not long enough, Alastair."

"Hmm … what _were_ you doing, meddling in our affairs in '43?"

"You have no affairs with humans." Castiel feinted to the right, then put his hand on the table and vaulted over, wings extended and Grace burning in him as he landed in front of the soul. For a second, Castiel stared into the man's face, catching a fleeting vision of the depths of pain, of torment and despair that writhed within the soul. Had Balthazar been right, he wondered? Was there a point to saving this soul?

Alastair thrust the man at him, trapping his sword between them, Castiel's hand reaching up to steady the soul automatically. Through the soul's memories of flesh and life, the glimpse he'd seen was multiplied a millionfold, hitting him with a blast wave of excruciating agony that was both devastating and disorienting.

"You're safe now," he said, the words coming out involuntarily as the man stared up at him. "God has commanded it."

"Keep him," the demon laughed. "We don't need him anymore!"

Castiel thrust the soul behind him as the demon ran, stopping himself from pursuing the torturer as he remembered his most important charge.

From behind them there was a rising ululation, the pitch increasing until the crystalline rocks surrounding them began to vibrate in sympathy. He swung around, one arm curved around the man's shoulders, in time to see Balthazar's sword sweep the head of the archdemon from its shoulders. The howl was silenced abruptly, no song sung for the blackened remains of what had once been one of his brothers. He lifted his sword as the demons still alive shrieked and fled, leathern wings crackling as they gained height, the fierce hot winds surging and buffeting them above the labyrinth and slamming many onto the rocks.

"It's over," he said softly to the soul beside him. The man's expression was blank, but the silvery light gleamed on a moving thread of moisture, as it slipped down his face.

_Michael._ Castiel called to the archangel, hoping he would hear.

_Castiel, do you have him?_ Michael's voice was faint.

_Yes, I have him._ Castiel took a deep breath. _Dean Winchester is saved._

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

He stood in front of the simple wooden marker, one wing curved protectively around the soul in his arms. Beneath his feet, under the earth, lay the body that the soul remembered; decomposing, but recoverable. He closed his eyes and slipped through the grass, and the roots, through the softly turned soil, and the cheap pine lid, and into the body.

His fingers lay against the slipping skin of the forehead and he drew on the power of Heaven, feeling it flow through him, into the flesh that lay under him. Cellular reconstruction began; the nervous system regenerating, the fluids returning to solid state as the cells multiplied and divided, rebuilding from the genetic keys held in every one.

The body lived, the heart beat, the lungs drew breath, in and out, synapses opened and closed, neurons fired … he looked down at the soul resting against him and touched it.

There was nothing he could do for the man's mind, he thought, a little regretfully as he watched expression return to the face. The burden of what this soul had done and what had been done to him would remain. He could not even remove those memories, for they were essential to this man's task. He had watched humanity struggle on this small planet for more than two thousand years, he reminded himself. They were his Father's creations, and all were capable of the strength demanded from them, even if few realised it.

* * *

><p>Dean Winchester woke, fighting his way from a confused tangle of memories of heat and flame, of pain and torment and anguish and shame, of suffocation and light too brilliant to look at, of the smell of feathers and flowers. He sucked in a breath of air, and another, his ribs shaking from the force of the pounding of his heart.<p>

* * *

><p>"<em>There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, <em>

_that can circumvent or hinder or control_

_the firm resolve of a determined soul."  
>~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox<em>

* * *

><p><strong>END<strong>


End file.
